Australian auto-parts industry suffers new blow

Victorian auto-parts supplier APV Automotive Components has gone into receivership, standing down 126 workers without pay in another black day for the local car industry.

The Coburg-based APV (Australian Performance Vehicles) who make OEM (original equipment manufacturer) components for Holden, Toyota and Ford, including fuel fillers, rear suspension struts, and steel and fabricated components, announced it was unable to pay its workers as a result of a significant decrease in orders.

While APV’s accessories plant in Queensland appears unaffected, its Melbourne workers will have to deal with the news when they return from an Easter-week holiday.

The company says a failed voluntary redundancy program and new enterprise agreement may have eased operating costs and aided financial pressures.

Stephen Longley and Nicholas Martin of PPB Advisory have been appointed as receivers of APV Automotive Components and say urgent discussions with suppliers, car companies, the Australian Metal Workers’ Union (AMWU) and employees are planned with the aim to resume operations as quickly as possible.

“In the meantime, it has been necessary for the receivers to stand down without pay the company’s employees as there are not sufficient funds for us to meet payroll or other operating costs,” Mr Longley told Melbourne’s Herald Sun today.

Only in May last year, APV stepped in to save the Autoliv crash test facility in Campbellfield, in Melbourne’s northern suburbs, with a $10 million investment.

The Autoliv facility falls under the companies safety division – run as a separate operation – and is believed to be financially secure avoiding the fiscal problems of the automotive components division.